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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 



Chap. E 5j;^- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. % 



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[Document F ] 

~ BY THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES^ 

May 9th, 1861. 
Kead and 10,000 copies ordered to be printed. 



REPOKT 



OF THH 



coMinimi ON riDiRiL mliiiiiis 



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IN KEGARD TO THE 



CALLING OF A SOVEEEIGN CONVENTION. 






^ 







FREDERICK, MD. 

E. S. RILEY, PRINTER, 

1861. 



HEP OUT 



O^0mmitoJ m ^ulml ligations. 



To the Honorable, . 

The Speaker of the House of Delegates : 

The Committee on Federal Relations, to whom were re- 
ferred the Message and Correspondence of the Governor, 
the Bill calling a Sovereign Convention_, &c., &c., ask 
leave respectfully to report, as follows : 

The Message of his Excellency, the- Governor, demands 
the consideration of the Legislature, from two points of 
view — first, in regard to the state of public affairs which 
it discloses, and secondly, as to the remedy which it sug- 
gests to the people of the State for the perilous contingen- 
cies which surround them. 

So far as we can ascertain the views of the Governor, 
from the brief presentation of them, which theha«te of our 
meeting had, as he states, permitted him to make, it 
appears that he regards the circumstances which have 
transpired since the attack upon the Massachusetts regi- 
ment in Baltimore, on the 19th of April, as constituting 
all the facts to which it is necessary your attention should 
be drawn. Your Committee, of course, recognize the 
propriety of avoiding at this moment all unnecessary re- 
currence to discussions which have already been far over- 
stepped by the rapid progress of events; but they find 
it, at the same time, quite impossible to do justice to the 
questions before them, without a frank and explicit refer- 
ence to at least a portion of the public events which had 
preceded and were so closely connected with the occurrence 
alluded to. 



Tlie President of the United States, Ly his Proclamation 
of the 15th of April, had called upon a poition of the 
States to place at his disposal a body of militia, to t'lie 
nntnher of sev^enty-five thousand men. The Proclamation 
"WHS directed against the people of the newly-formed Soiitli- 
ertt Confederacy, and its j)nrposes and policy were ohvioiis, 
although its terms were technically shaped in conCoiiuity 
with tiie Act of Con<j:ress of 1795. It lecited, with formal 
precivsicm, in the language of the Act, "that the laws 
of the United States were opposed, and the executitm 
thereof was obstructed," in the seven seceded States, " by 
combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary 
course of judicial i)roceedings, or by the {)owers ve.vt.^d in 
the Marshals," and it called forth the militia of the other 
States, in the further language of the statute, "to sup- 
press such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly 
executed." In pui'suance of another sefction of the law, 
it then commanded "the insurgents to disperse and retire 
peaceably to their respective aboiles " witliin twenty da\ s. 
If there is any proposition clear beyond dispute, it must 
be, that if the occasion which atithorizes the President to 
call out the militia, under the Act of 1795, existed at all, 
it was declared, by the explicit terms of the Proclama- 
tion, to exist only in tlie States of the Southern Conled- 
eracy, which were therein enumerated. It is equally in- 
disputable, as trmtter of law, that the militia, if called out 
lawfully at all, were lawfully em[)owered to execute the 
laws and suppress unlawful combinations in the seven 
States named, and in none other. Sncli a conclusion of 
law is not only obvious and unavoidable, as matter of con- 
Btruction, but equally to be insisted upon as matter of 
principle and self-protection on the part of the peo|»le; 
for the exercise of the military power, in a free govern- 
ment, is never to be permitted, except within the limits 
and under the severest restrictions and checks of the law. 
If a President of the United States, under the fraudulent 
pretence of sup[)ressing unlawful combinations in Louisi- 
ana and Florida, could be permitted to call out troops, to 
be used for any purpose in Maryland or Virginia, no soil 
of any State would be free from invasion, and no right of 
the citizen anywhere would be secure against overthrow. 

It was not, however, because of any apprehension that 
the militia which were called out by the Presiilent would 
be used in other than the designated quarters, that the 
Proclamation created an intense and immediate excite- 
ment in the Southern and Border Slave States. On the 



confrary, it was the very purpose announced by Mr. Lincoln 
which kindled so intense a Hame of resentineut uiid leoist- 
ance. His prttclaniation was regarded as a declaration of 
war against tl'e iSoutliern Coulederacy — as a deliberate 
summons to the people of the two sections, into wtiiuli his 
party and its principles had so hopelessly divided ihe land, 
to slit'd each other's blood, in wantonness and liate. A 
scheme so I'nll of wickedness — so utterly subversive of 
every principle upon which our government was tounded, 
and so sure to involve the destruction ot that government, 
let the fortune of war be what it might — could not but 
excite almost to frenzy every feeling of those who sym- 
pathized with the people against whom it was lulminaLed. 
Independently, too, ot its wantonness and inhuiuauily, it 
was felt and known to be a gross violation of the Uonsutu- 
tion*, and without color of lawful authority, 'ihe people 
of the seceded States, whether constitutionally or uncon- 
stitutionally, had se})arated themselves Irom this govern- 
ment and established a fedeinl government of their own, 
■with all the lorms of a constitution anel all the substantial 
attributes of actual independence. Tiirough tiieir consti- 
tuted authorities and in their collective capacity, as com- 
niunifies, they had withdrawn themselves troin ine Union 
— repudiated its laws and excluded its otlicers, ol all sorts, 
from the exercise of all functions and jurisdiction. The 
United States Government no longer nad among them 
either courts to issue, or marshals to execute process. 
They had substituted their own courts and their own pro- 
cesses, to which they yielded cheerlul obedience. The 
aiitli(»rity of the Federal Government was in lact dead 
within their limits. They were in an attitude towaids it, 
not only of independence, but of forcible resistance, tor 
they had repelled tlie assertion of its authority, over any 
portion of their soil, and had subdued, for their own pro- 
tection, one of its fortifications within their borders. The 
Coiiie<lerate Gftverument and that of the United States 
Were, in fine, belligerents, engaged in actual, though 
undeclared war, and with all the rights and responsibili- 
ties which it gives and entails. This last is none the 
les.s true, because of their being engaged in civil war, lor 
that is like any other war when waged among civilized 
p( ople. Vattel defines the relations which exist in such 
CHses in terms too clear to be misunderstood, and too well 
recognized to be disputed. 

"A civil war," he says, "breaks the bands of society 
and government, or at least suspends their Jorce and 
efiect. It produces in the nation two independent parties, 



who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no 
common judge. These two parties, therefore, must ne- 
cessarily be considered as thenceforward constituting, at 
least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct socie- 
ties. Though one of the parties may have been to blame 
in breaking the unity of the State and resisting the lawful 
authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, 
who shall judge them? Who shall pronounce on which 
gide the right or the wrong lies ? On earth they have no 
common superior. They stand, therefore, in precisely the 
same predicament as two nations, who engage in a con- 
test, and being unable to come to an agreement, have re- 
course to arms." (Vattel, Book 3, ch. 18, sec. 2*.)3.) To 
attempt to apply, under such circumstances, to a belliger- 
ent people, an Act of Congress, which was meant as a 
domestic remedy, in aid of civil process and to secure obe 
dience to the laws under judicial proceeding-^in States 
Btill recognizing the authority of the Union and the juris- 
diction of its tribunals — was to trifle with the understand- 
ing of educated men. To issue a proclamation to three- 
millions of free Americans, composing seven powerful 
States, and asserting the sacred and indefeasible right of 
self-government, with arms in their hands, and "com- 
mand" them as "insurgents" to "retire peaceably to 
their respective abodes," like a mob at a street corner, 
was an absurdity too gross to be here respectfully dis- 
cussed. No government would venture to palm such an 
imposition upon a people, except in the well-assured con- 
fidence of absolute power. Nay, in the passionate excite- 
ment of the moment, the President forgot even the sug- 
gestions of politic decorum, and did not hesitate to trans- 
gress all possible constitutional limits, and confess a 
purpose of animosity and revenge, by distinctly calling 
on the people, whom he summoned to the field, " to re- 
dress wrongs, already long enough endured." The proc- 
lamation, therefore, meant war, and nothing but war. It 
could signify nothing else, and to attempt to cloak its 
meaning and purpose under the flimsy pretext of "exe- 
cuting the laws" and " supi)ies.sing unlawful combina- 
tions," was but to cover up a flagrant usurpation with 
words. 

Neither the Constitution nor the laws of the Uni- 
ted States can be tortured into conferring the war- 
making power ui)on the President in any contingency. 
Where foreign nations are concerned, the plain language 
of the fundamental law entrusts it to Congress only. As 
against the States of the Union, the possibility of such a 



thing is not even contemplated, much less provided for. — 
Like parricide at Athens, it was held too heinous and im- 
possible, to be named, even for the purpose of punishment. 
As early as the fifth day after the meeting of the Conven- 
tion for the formation of the Federal Constitution, "the" 
use of force against a State," by the rest of the Union, as 
contemplated in the plan of Mr. Randolph, was denounced 
by Mr. Madison, and on his motion the resolution provid- 
ing for it was indefinitely postponed by unanimous assent. 
Mr. Madison announced it as his deliberate opinion that 
*'a union of the States, containing such an ingredient, 
seemed to provide for its own destruction. " From that 
day forward such an idea ceased to be a part of the theo- 
ry of those by whom tlie Constitution was framed. When 
Gen. Hamilton was called to express his opinion upon it, he 
asked, *' How can this force be exerted on the State collec- 
tively ? It is impossible; it amounts to a war upon the 
parties. Foreign powers, also, will not be idle spectators. 
They will interpose ; the confusion will increase, and a dis- 
solution of the tJnion will ensue. " The reasoning was un- 
answerable, and the Constitution happily was not stained 
with the perilous folly, against which these two great states- 
men so earnestly protested. There was not a discussion in 
the debates on the Federal Constitution, whether in the 
Convention which framed it or the State Conventions which 
adopted it, that does not confirm this view of its spirit and 
purpose. The essays of the Federalists are pregnant with 
demonstuations to the same effect, and there is no constitu- 
tional lawyer who does not know, that the whole theory of 
the Government is to act, through the courts, upon individ- 
uals, and not through the Army and Navy upon the States. 
The brave and wise men who framed and upheld it, would 
have died in the breach before they would have submitted 
themselves to it upon any other basis. It could never have 
been adopted, it would never have been ratified, upon any 
other understanding. The States would have endured an- 
archy, distracted counsels, and all the evils of the old Con- 
federation, aggravated tenfold, before they would have sur- 
rendered themselves to any system in which the Federal 
Government, and least of all, the Federal Executive, was 
clothed with the constitutional power of coercing them by 
force of arms. They entered into jj^constitutional Union, 
depending for its permanence upon the good faith and 
good feeling of its members, and deriving its strength from 
their consent only. They did not abandon themselves to 
the bayonets of a military despotisni enthroned upon pop- 
ular majorities. ^ 



8 

But, illegal and unconstitutional as was tlie war which 
the Piuclainatiou sunnnoned one section ot" the country to 
wage against the other, the causes and purposes of that 
war, made it chiefly obnoxious to the people of Maryland 
and of the Slave IStates of the Border. It was a war of 
propagandism and of sectional aggression and domination. 
it was a war of the North upon the ISouth. It was a war 
in which the dominant section had seized ufon the name 
Rud flag, and resources and powers, of the General Gov- 
ernment, and was abusing them for its own ends, and for 
the permanent establishment of its dominion over the 
other section. It was a war, to the unholy purposes of 
which the sacred associations and memories of the Union 
weie [)rostituted, and in which its honored name was 
taken in vain. It was a war waged against a peojile of our 
own name and blood; who sought peace and kindly rela- 
tions with us, and who asked only to be let alone and to 
be permitted to govern themselves. It could bring no good, 
for it could end only in the defeat of the invaders or the 
Bubjugation of the invaded, and in either case the Union, 
whicli our fathers left to us, must beat an end. Subjugated 
provinces could not be sister States, and a Federal Govern- 
ment, professedly Republican, maintaining its authority by 
armies, could not be other than the worst and most un- 
principled and uncontrollable of despotisms. The South 
had entrenched itself upon the principle of self-government. 
It had offered to negotiate, peaceably and honorably, upon 
all matters of common property and divided, interest, 
claiming only that three millions of people had a right to 
throw olf a Government, by which they no longer desired 
to be ruled, and to live under another Government of their 
own choosing. Unless the American Revolution was a 
crime, the declaration of American Independence a false- 
hood, and every patriot and hero of 177B a traitor, the 
South was right and the North was wrong, upon that issue. 
The people of Maiyland, theiefore, could have but one 
choice in such a contest, and while as devoted to the Union 
and as loyal to the Constitution, as the people of any of 
the thirteen States, who had formed the one and pledged 
themselves to the other, they could not but throw the whole 
weight of their sympathies upon that side to which com- 
mon interests and institutions inclined them, and with which 
they felt that the right and the truth were. Nor was it a 
matter of sympathy merely. The hreach of the Constitu- 
tion involved in the coercive policy of the Administration, 
was a breach of their rights, and not less than an unlawful 



aggression upon the rights of the Southern people. It was 
an overthrow of the principles of free government, and 
could end in nothing but an ignominious anniliilation of 
the noble institutions of the Eepublic. The people of 
Maryland were summoned to take part, as soldiers, in tlie 
strife, and as citizens they were asked to contribute their 
means to its prosecution, and were to bear tlieir share of 
its unconstitutional burdens; their stake in the struggle, 
therefore, was one of political and individual self-preserva- 
tion. They were bound by every principle and pressed for- 
ward by every impulse of right and self-respect, to make 
every protest against the wrong to their brethren, and the 
oppression to themselves, which their situation and circum- 
stances would permit. To the requisition upon them for 
troops, to take part upon the side of the Government in 
such a strife, their answer, if they could have given it with 
their own voice, would have been an instant and indignant 
refusal. 

It is deeply to be regretted that the response of his Ex- 
cellency, the Governor, should have fallen so far short, in 
this regard, of the manly and patriotic spirit v/ith which 
tl'.e Governors of Virginia and JSTortli Carolina, Tennessee, 
Kentucky and Missouri, threw back the insulting proposi- 
tion of the Administration. Indeed, the Committee are 
unable to determine, from the correspondence with which 
the Governor has furnished the Legislature, whether his 
Excellency does not still contemplate complying with the 
requisition as made. His letter of April 20th, to the Sec- 
retary of War, is the only one which gives a key to his 
intentions, and in that he merely announces that he thinks 
it "prudent to decline (for the present") — not because of 
the illegality and wickedness of the demand, and the dis- 
grace which the State would incur from acceding to it — 
but on account of the then alleged disorderly condition of 
the militia themselves. Your Committee are not prepared 
to admit the accuracy of the statement made by the Gover- 
nor in the letter referred to, to the effect that "the princi-' 
pal part of the organized military forces " of Baltimore took 
part with the " disorderly element " in the affair of the 19th 
of April. On the contrary, they have every assurance and 
every reason to believe that the organized military of Bal- 
timore, under the direction of the constituted authorities, 
and in implicit obedience to their orders, did all that could 
have been expected from brave men and good citizens to 
preserve the public tran(|ui1ity. But whether the hasty 
statement of the Executive be well or ill-founded in that 



10 

particular,, the determination of tlie State of Maryland, 
upon the question of furnishing her quota of militia to 
make war upon the Southein States, ought not, in the 
opinion of your Committee, to rest a moment longer upon 
any such collateral and accidental issue. It becomes the 
self-respect of the State that she should speak out openly 
and decidedly upon the point, and the question should no 
longer be left dependent upon what may be hereafter re- 
garded as " prudent" by the Executive. For this purpose, 
your Committee have prepared and reported a resolution, 
which is appended to this report, and the adoption of which 
they respectfully recommend. 

It is but justice to the Executive of the State to observe, 
in this connection, that his Excellency appears to have been 
misled^ in his action upon the requisition of the United 
States Government, by the two letters of the Secretary of 
War, dated April 17, in which that gentleman informs him 
that ''the troops to be raised in Maryland wmU be needed 
for the defence of the Capital and of the public property 
in that State and neighborhood." " There is no inten- 
tion," the Secretary adds, " of removing them beyond these 
points." Jn conformity with this information, the Procla- 
mation of the Governor — of which he has not furnished a 
copy to the General Assembly, but whicli is matter of pub- 
lic notoriety — informs his fellow citizens to the same effect, 
and holds out the idea that troops from this State may be 
furnished for the purposes indicated. Your Committee 
would be happy to persuade themselves that in suggesting 
the possibility of its being ''prudent," at any time, for the 
Maryland quota to be furnished to the Government, his 
Excellency could only have contemplated their employment 
in any contingency, for the limited ])urposes in question. 
But it does not become the House of Delegates to allow 
themselves to be deceived by any such intimations from 
the Government, as these which im})osed upon the Gover- 
nor. The Proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, under which the 
troops of Maryland have been called into the field, is 
directed (as has already been observed) against the seceded 
States and none other. The Militia were summoned to 
execute the laws and Rnp])rcss unlawful combinations in 
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, .Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Texas, and not in Maryland or the District 
of Columbia. The very requisition of the Secretary of War 
upon the Governor, is in direct and absolute contradiction 
to the assurance contained in his letter. The one asks for 
troops to be used in the South, and not at the Federal Cap- 



11 

ital, the other declares that their employment, at the 
Federal Capital and not in the South, is the only purpose 
contemplated. 

One of two things, therefore, is perfectly clear. Either 
the Government had called out troops under the pretense 
of needing them for one purpose, while intending to use 
them for another, or it contemplated employing a portion 
of them at Washington, as a guard and a reserve, hut in 
aid, at the same time, of its offensive movements to the South 
of the Potomac. In the one case, it can have no claim upon 
our confidence; in the other, we should be false to ourselves 
and to free institutions, if we were to hesitate about refus- 
ing it our co-operation. Whatever destiny the people of 
Maryland may be able or willing to shape for themselves, 
now or hereafter, the Committee would be pained to believe 
it possible, that a single citizen of the State could be forced 
or persuaded to take part, directly or indirectly, in the 
slaughter and subjugation of our Southren brethren and 
the overthrow ot Constitutional Government by usurpation 
tand brute force. If the Government desires to put an end 
to all doubts as to the safety of the Capital, it can do so at 
a word, by putting an end to its own purposes of coercing 
the South. 

What the Committee have already suggested in regard 
to the character and purj)Oses of the conflict, which Mr. Lin- 
coln has inaugurated, under the pretense of enforcing the 
laws, is so manifestly and indisputably corroborated by his 
course since the Legislature was convoked, that the Com- 
mittee cannot discharge their duty without alluding to 
that course in this connection. Reference is especially had 
to the Proclamation of the 3d of May, calling out over for- 
ty-two thousand additional volunteers, to serve in the mi- 
litia for a period of three years, and increasing the regular 
force of the United States by an addition of nearly twenty- 
three thousand men to the army, and eighteen thousand 
seamen to the navy. The most unscrupulous advocate of 
the Administration and its policy, v/ould be compelled to 
shrink from the task of pointing out any legal or Constitu- 
tional authority of any sort,#for this unprecedented mea- 
sure. The right of increasing the array and navy is one 
which belongs exclusively to Congress, and over which the 
President has no more Constitutional control than the 
humblest citizen. His right to call out the militia is ex- 
pressly limited by the restriction that their use shall only 
continue "^if necessary, until after the expiration of thirty 
days after the commencement of the then next session of 



12 

Congress," (Act of 1795, Sec. 2.) The Proclamation is 
therefore without any color whatever of right, and is a» 
plain and hald a subversion of the letter and spirit of tlie 
Constitution and the laws, as ever was attempted by the 
military power, in any Government ostensibly free. The 
pretense of " existing exigencies " is but the shape in which 
military revolutions have always begun, since the prestige 
of free institutions has rendered it necessary, even ibr usurp- 
ers to make a show of apology for overthrowing them. 

If ever a triumphant illustration could be given of the 
wisdom of our fathers, in providing by the constitution, 
that the government should oj)erate upon its individual 
citizens through the laws, and not upon the States by 
military coercion, it is to be found in the fact, that the first 
administration daring to depart from this fundamental and 
consecrated principle, has rushed, in the short space of 
sixty days, into the assertion of absolute control over the 
whole military resources of the country, in open and reck- 
less defiance of every legal and constitutional restraint. 
The Committee hazard nothing in saying, tliat there is not« 
a citizen of Maryland, whatever be his political opinions, 
who must not shudder at the jialpable and ominous pres- 
ence of this usurpation, and who does not recognize^, for the 
first time, in his own experience or the history of Maryland, 
that he is living and moving and holding his civil and 
political rights at the pleasure of an unrestricted military 
power, and subject to the arbitrar}' and anti-republican ca- 
prices of what is entitled " military necessity." For any man 
to be able to persuade himself, under such circumstances, 
that the policy of the Administration ever meant peace and 
not war — the "enforcement of the laws," — the " defence of 
the capital"' — and not subjugation — requires a peculiarity of 
mental construction with which reason is at a loss how to 
deal. To suppose that a blockade of the whole sea coast, 
from the capes of the Chesapeake to the extreme borders 
of Texas, with a land army extraordinary of one hundred 
and fifty thousand men, and a naval increase of eighteen 
thousand, can be intended only in aid of ''the ordinary 
course of judicial proceedings, .or the powers vested in the 
Marshals,' and is therefore within the scope of the Presi- 
dent's civil functions, and not of the war-making power, 
which only Congress can exercise, implies a facility of con- 
viction, to which nothing can be regarded as impossible. 

The Committee are of course not unacquainted with the 
familiar doctrine laid down by tlie Supreme Court of the 
United States in the case of Martin vs. Mott, (12 Wheaton, 



13 

19,) and so often cited by those who maintained the abso- 
lute authority of tlie President over the whole question of 
calling out the militia. The Committee might readily 
dispose of it if thty were willing to stand upon the same 
grounds with the Administration, by applying to it the doc- 
trine of the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln, and might insist upon 
confining the ruling of the Court to the particular case 
and the individual parties concerned, repudiating its con- 
trolling authority, upon the one side or the other, on a 
question of administrative government. Believing, how- 
ever, that the true and only " loyalty " of a free people 
consists in their reverence for the laws and Constitution, 
and their obedience to the tribunals by which these are 
expounded, the Committee assume that the people of Mary- 
land wall cheerfully bow to whatever the Supreme Court 
has determined, upon the question under discussion, or any 
other. The case of Martin vs. Mott was a controversy be- 
tween a private of Militia and one of the United States 
Marshals, who had seized his goods, in enforcement of a 
fine imposed by court-martial, for failure to enter the ser- 
vice upon requisition, according to law, during the war 
of 1812. The jurisdiction of the court-martial, and the 
authority of the President to issue the proclamation under 
which the militia Avere called out to repel invasion, were 
both considered tin the case ; the question in chief, how- 
ever, of course being the right of the individual citizen 
to judge, for himself, whether the legal occasion existed, 
upon which the President might rightfully summon the 
citizens to arms. This latter was the real and only point 
in controversy, and the Court decided, that under the Act 
of 1795, it was for the President, exclusively, to determine 
whether tho exigency contemi)lated by the law had arisen, 
and that no soldier or officer had any choice but to obey. 
The principle of military subordination upon which this 
adjudication is distinctly placed by the Court, is too obvi- 
ous to be confounded with the recognition of arbitrary and ■ 
irresponsible power, to which the decision is sought to be 
perverted, by the supporters of the existing order of things. 
To determine that the President is the exclusive judge of 
whether an exigency has arisen, in a case to which his 
discretion is lawfully a})plicable, is one thing. To give 
to him the exclusive and irreversible authority to deter- 
mine, not only the existence of the exigency', but the 
existence of the case in which it may lawfully arise, is 
quite another thing. The first is what the Siipreme Court 
has done, the second is what no respectable Court, it is 



14 

confidantly assumed, can be' persuaded or forced to do, 
except under the pressure of "military necessity." The 
one gives to the President the exercise of a discretion, in 
certain named and ascertained cases. The other gives him 
absolute [)ower in all cases. The one endows him with a 
necessary executive function. The other makes him su- 
preme over all law, by granting him the exclusive control 
of its application. If the President cannot only invoke 
the military j)ower at his discretion, in cases of invasion, 
insurrection and resistance to the laws, but can create 
invasion, insurrection and resistance, by merely proclaim- 
ing that they exist, whether, in fact, they do so, or not; 
there is not a moment of his term, at which he cannot 
constitutioriall}^ compass the absolute subjugation of the 
people, through the mere official assertion of a falsehood. 
Assume for a moment, for the sake of the argument, that 
the attitude of the United ^States, is not, in fact or law, a 
case authorizing the President to call out the militia, 
under the act of 1795, is it to be pretended that he makes 
it such a case simply by calling it such in a proclamation ? 
Is it to be gravely argued, under a constitutional govern- 
ment, that the nation is bound to acquiesce in it as a fact, 
against the public knowledge to the contrary, and must 
accept the war, endure the bloodshed, pour out the treas- 
ure, and submit to the usurpation, witli no other remedy 
than articles of impeachment, or the chances of the next 
Presidential election ? 

The commonest intelligence — the most superficial ac- 
quaintance with the scheme and spirit of republican in- 
stitutions — revolts at conclusions so monstrous. And yet. 
precisely such must be the conclusions to which any man 
must yield who supposes the Supreme Court to have de- 
cided, as has been pretended. That high tribunal never 
meant to decide, and never did decide, a principle so 
wholly irrational and despotic. It is a disrespect to its 
character to put such a question even in dispute. The 
way in which the States and the people may and ought to 
deal with such a usurpation is a matter apart, but that it 
does not cease to be a usurpation, because of the insertion 
of a form of words in a Proclamation, is a matter which 
the Committee will not disparage the manliness and sense 
of the House by discussing further. Indeed, in his letter 
of May, 4th, 1861, to the U. S. Minister at Paris, which 
has appeared during the preparation of this report, 
the Secretary of State does not hesitate to throw aside all 
the masks and pretenses of the proclamation, and to admit 



15 

that it is no longer a simulated question of" enforcino- tlie 
laws" and "defending tlie Capital," but a downriflit 
case of "civil war" — of "open, flagrant, deadly war," 
which the United States have ''accepted." Such a con- 
fession — nay, sucli a bold and defiant annunciation — that 
the President has assumed upon himself the power of peace 
and Avar, in glaring and indisputable subversion of the 
Constitution, leaves to the people of Maryland notliino- 
further to consider, in this connection, but the fact, that 
they are face to face with a military despotism, whose only 
law is its will. 

If the Committee are justified, by vv^hat has been said, 
in their view of the constitutional position of the Federal 
Grovernment, and especially if the admissions now made 
by it, without disguise, show but the consummation of an 
original and persistent illegal scheme on the part of the 
Administration, it follows, as a matter of necessity _, that the 
troops called out by tlie President were and are an unau- 
thorized body of men, passing across our territory for ille- 
gal and unconstitutional purposes, and carrying with 
them none of the constitutional safeguai-ds, which would 
undoubtedly accompany any force of the United States ex- 
ercising the right of transit for lawful and justifiable 
ends. They were, in fact, not United States soldiers, but 
" Northern troops/' as they were properly designated by 
the Governor \n his correspondence, and " Northern 
troops," too, whose presence in Maryland, without the con- 
sent of her constituted authorities, was indubitably an 
aggression upon her dignity, her safety and tranquility. 
Your Committee, of course, admit, without question, that 
only the authorities of the State were competent to deal 
with such a case, and that it could only have been dealt 
with properly, even by them, in distinct recognition of the 
fact, that Maryland is still a State of the Union, with all 
the obligations which that relation in)poses upon lier. 

But they cannot shut tlieireyes to the other fact, equally 
indisputable, that it was primarily the fault of those who 
marched the Massachusetts soldiery through Baltimore 
upon an unconstitutional aiul illegal errand, if the ])opular 
])assions were uuf )rturuitely stimulated by their presence 
into a lawless outbreak, too sudden and too violent to be 
restrained, for the moment, by the ordinary appliances of 
a free government. The Committee, therefore, cannot but 
commend the repeated efforts of tlie Governor to induce the 
President to forego his pur})ose of })assing troops across our 
soil, both before and after the fatal occurrence of the 19th 



16 

of April. They can only regret that the indignant feeling 
manifiested by his Excellency in regard to the misdeeds of 
the " rebellious element" at home was not testified, with 
equal vigor of remonstrance against the illegality and 
wrong, involved in tlie proceedings of the Government. 

The events whieh have occurred since the period referred 
to, the Committee do not feel themselves called upon to dis- 
cuss in any detail. They have taken occasion to allude, in a 
previous report, to tlie humiliating facts which are disclosed 
by the present position of Maryland. A State of tlie Union, 
held to the obligations of that relation, and having never 
througb her constituted authorities pretended to repudiate 
or abjure them, she is treated as a conquered enemy. Her 
soil is occupied ; her property and that of her citizens are 
sequestered ; her public highways are seized and obstructed; 
her laws are suspended ; her capital is converted into a 
military ])ost ; her Legislature is compelled, in the lan- 
guage of her Executive, to consult its '' safety " by holding 
its sessions at a distance from her offices and archives; troops 
are quartered around the peaceful hoojesteads of her people ; 
her citizens are subjected to the illegal and arbitrary vio- 
lence of military arrest and confinement ; her very freedom, 
in fine, all tliat distinguished her from a Neapolitan prov- 
ince, before Naples was liberated, is under the armed heel 
of the Government. That such a fate is imposed upon her, 
without constitutional authority: that indeed no respect 
to the constitution is even pretended in her regard ; the 
frank admission of the Federal authorities to the Commis- 
sioners recently accredited to them by this Legislature, ren- 
ders a mortifying and almost intolerable certainty. 

The State of Maryland is under military rule. Partly 
for military convenience, and partly for chastisement, 
her free institutions have been temporarily suspended by 
the War De{iartment, and her name blotted out, for tlie 
time, from the list of free governments. It is not the de- 
sire of the Committee te aggravate by, comment the hu- 
miliation which is inseparable from these facts in their 
simplest statement. It is not their disposition to provoke 
a review of the unhappy policy, in her own councils, which 
has contributed to plunjje the State into so ho{>eless and 
helpless a condition. They wish to deal only with the 
j)ractical questions it suggests for present determination ; 
and this brings them to consider ihe recommendations of 
the message transmitted by the Governor. 

The Committee understand his Excellency as recom- 
mending, in general terms, a policy of peace. So far as 



IT 

that nated proposition goes, they give to it their warmest 
and heartiest concurrence, but tliey are not sure that they 
exactly apprehend the mode, in which the Governor pro- 
poses that the policy he so favors should be carried out. 
His language is as follows: " I honestly and most earnestly 
entertain the conviction, that the only safety of Maryland 
lies in preserving a neutral position between our brethren 
of the North and South." He then enters into a consider- 
ation of the part which Maryland has taken in the sec- 
tional contest that has been waged, and adds : " Entertain- 
ing these views, I cannot counsel Maryland to take sides 
against the Federal Government, until it shall commit out- 
rages upon us which would justify us in resisting its au- 
thority." What class of outrages would furnish such jus- 
tification for resistance he does not announce, but proceeds 
to say: "As a consequence, I can give no other counsel 
than that we shall array ourselves for union and peace, 
and thus preserve our soil from being polluted with the 
blood of brethren. Thus, if war must be between the 
North and the South, we may force the contending parties 
to transfer the field of battle from our soil, so that our 
lives and property may be secure." 

The Committee confess their difficulty in perceiving how, 
consistently with a policy purely pacific, these counsels 
can possibly be made available. No matter how decidedly 
and enthusiastically we "array ourselves for union and 
peace," it is altogether impossible for us to preserve our 
soil from the pollution of fraternal blood, unless we pos- 
sess the means and assert the power to force back the tide 
of war, if it comes surging across our bordei'S. • And that 
we should consolidate and employ such povrer totl)e extent 
which the exigency may demand, is obviously the counsel 
of the Governor, for he proceeds to tell us, that by the ac- 
tion he advises, we may be able, "if war must be," to 
'■'■force the contending parties to transfer the field of battle 
from our soil, so that our lives and property may be secure." 
Surely we cannot "force" belligerent armies from our 
midst, without emplo}ing force of our own. It is out of 
the question that we can prevent them from making our 
homes their battle-field, unless we have the strength to re- 
pel them, and aie willing and prepared to use it. 

No peaceful "array" whatever — no legislative protest — 
no executive remonstrance — from Maryland, can stay the 
strife of contending squadrons A deputation from the 
Peace Society would have been as effectual in arresting a 
charge at Solferino. If, then, the "neutrality" of the 



18 

Governor means any thing, (speaking with all respect,) 
it must mean a neutrality armed and resolute — prepared 
to assert its policy, and able to vindicate it on the field. 
Otherwisfe it would be nothing and would come to nothing. 
It would only irritate both parties and stay the arm of 
neither. 

And yet although this is the result and the only practi- 
cal result of the recommendation of the Message, it is 
difficult to reconcile such a conclusion with the other views 
which the Governor announces. Upon the authority of 
" our most learned and intelligent citizens," he admits the 
right of the Government to transport its troops across our 
soil. He recognizes the unbroken relation and the contin- 
uing loyalty of Maryland to the Union. He does not im- 
peach the constitutionality of the action of the Federal 
authorities. His protests against the landing of the troops, 
and the seizure of the railroad at Annapolis, are based upon 
no denial of the right. They amount to remonstrance and 
advice, but to nothing more. 

His theory is, and he has always steadfastlv maintained 
it, that nothing has occurred to alter the reciprocal rights 
and obligations of this State and the General Government. 
The Constitution he believes is still over both, and the old 
bonds still unite them together. If all this be true, then 
the State of Maryland can hold no neutrality when the 
Union is at war. She is part of the Union ; at war when 
it wars ; at peace when it is peaceful. She " takes sides " 
against it the instant that she fails to take sides with it. 
Neutrality, in such a case, is nullification pure and simple, 
and an armed neutrality is merely rebellion and not union 
or peace. The position of his Excellency in the premises 
is, therefore, in the judgment of the Committee, wholly 
untenable, and it is not surprising that it should have placed 
him at so obvious a disadvantage, in the corres{)ondence 
which he has furnished the House between himself and 
the astute officers of the Government. Differing from the 
Governor in opinion as to the course and rights of the 
Federal authorities, to the wide extent herein before indi- 
cated, the Committee have no hesitation in asserting and 
maintaining the right of the State, and its duty, to protest 
against the unconstitutional action of the Administration, 
and refuse obedience to its unconstitutional demands. Rec- 
ognizing, however, to the same extent as the Governor, the 
fact that Maryland is still a State of the Union, the Com- 
mittee cannot counsel this honorable body or the people 
whom it represents, to assume, under the guise of " neu- 



19 

rality," a hostile relation to the Government, or attempt 
by any policy whatever^ to "force" it from the position in 
which it is entrenched. If no better ar^jiiment existed 
against such a project, a sufficient one would be found in 
its hopeless futility. 

The present — and the only possible present attitude of 
the State towards the Federal Government is, in the 
judgment of the Committee, an attitude of submission — 
voluntary and cheerful submission on the part of tliose 
who can persuade themselves thajt the Constitution re- 
mains inviolate and the Union unbroken, or that the 
Union can survive the Constitution — unwilling and gall- 
ing submission on the part of those who think and feel 
differently ; but still, ])eaceful submission upon both sides. 
It is not for the Committee to ignore this state of things, 
because of the humiliation which comes with it. They 
feel it their duty to confess the inexorable logic of facts, 
and leave the future to be shaped by the peoj)le of Jlary- 
land, to whom, exclusively, that prerogative belongs, and 
who, doubtless, will exercise it in their own way and at 
their own good time. 

This expression of the views of your Committee, at so 
mueh necessaiy length, leaves very obvious the recommen- 
dations which tliey ask leave to report, upon the two lead- 
ing subjects submitted to their deliberation : the calling of 
a Sovereign Convention of the people, and the re-organiza- 
tion and arming of the militia of -the State. 

At the time when the Legislature was called together, 
there was certainly but little difference of opinion among 
its members, of all parties, as to the propriety of speedily 
adopting measures to secure both the objects referred to. — 
Since that time, the rapid and extraordinai-y development 
of events, and of the warlike purposes of the Administra- 
tion ; the concentration of large bodies of trodps in our 
midst and upon our borders, and the actual and threatened 
military occupation of the State; have naturally enough 
produced great changes of opinion and feeling among our 
citizens. The members of the Committee, judging from 
their own correspondence and that of their felli)w members, 
of all shades of opinion, as well as from the memorials and 
other expressions of the public will, which have reached 
the House, have no hesitation in expressing their belief, 
that there is an almost unanimous feeling in the State 
against calling a Convention at the present time. The 
reasons for this conclusion are doubtless various, in differ- 
ent portions of the State, and the opinions of individuals as 



20 

to the probable result of tlie deliberations of a Convention, 
at this Miornent, are of course veiy wide apait. To the 
Conunittee, the .sirii!;le fact of the military occupation of 
our soil by the Northern troops in the service of the Gov- 
ernment, against the wishes of our people^ and the solema 
protest of the 8late Executive, is a sufficient and conclusive 
reason for postponing the subject, to a period wlien the Fed- 
eral ban shall be no longer upon us. It does not become 
the dignity of tlie State of Maryland to attempt the per- 
formance of an act of sovereignty, absolute or qualified, at a 
moment when not only her sovereignty but her Federal 
equality is subordinated to the law of the drum-hpad. Ko 
election, held at such a time and with such surroundings, 
could by j)ossibility be fair or free. No result whicii could 
be reaolied by it would commrnd the confidence or secure 
the willing obedience ot the people. The C<irau)ittee there- 
fore feel it tli'eir duty to recommend the postponement of 
the subject for the })resent. 

For reasons almost identical, the Committee take leave 
to report against the arming of the State, and the oigani- 
zation of our military defenses at this time. If the holding 
of a Sovereign Convention were not regarded as a iu)Stile 
movement by the Federal Government, the re-establishment 
of the military force of the State, in a condition of present 
efficiency, certainly would be, however unjustly. It avails 
nothing to say that the arming and organization of a suit- 
able militia, are declared by the Constitution of the United 
States to be "necessary to the security of a free State," and 
therefore especially guaranteed to us as peaceful and in n- 
damental rights. The Constitution is silenced by the bay- 
onets which surrountl us, and it is not worth while for us 
to fancy ourselves beneath its a?gis. It would be criminal 
as well as I'oolish for us to shut our eyes to the tact tiiat 
we will not be permitted to organize and arm our citizens, 
let our rights and the Constitution be what they may. — 
The interview ot our Commissioners with the President 
sets that point at rest. It is not easy tor fiee men to leal- 
ize ,'iuch a stat* of things ; but it is not our lault that we 
are helj)less, nor our shame tiiatour helplessness is abused. 

The Committee respectfully recommend that no action 
be taken towards the re-or^anization of the militia at this' 
time, or the doing oi" any act which might be cmistrued 
into hostility to the Government, and that, if any })ur- 
chase of arms be indispensable, it be confined, at the 
farthest, to such reasoiuible quantity as nuiy be manufac- 
tured in our own State, for local purposes, and may aid ia 



21 

the equipment of the militia, when a plan for their proper 
enrolment and distribution shall be matured at some 
future day. The [)urchase of such a quantity can jjive no 
just tjround for cohi[»laint in any quarter, as the sji^litest 
inquiry will show that the total dissise of the militia sys- 
tem, for many years past, has left us almost wholly defence- 
less in many parts of the State, and rendeis some such ar- 
ranifeiuent indispensable as a meusure of domestic pidice. 

The Committee regard it as within their province further 
to su^^est to this htmorahle body the propiiety ot adjourn- 
ing over to some named day, as soon as its j)resent and 
pressing duties are discharged. In their opinion, the ex- 
igencies of the present crisis do not permit a final adjourn- 
ment, with atiy proper regard to the responsibilities and 
dangers which may, at any moment, be precipitated on 
the State. 

Finally, the Committee respectfully submit to the House 
the following resolutions, ami pray to be discharged from 
the further consideration of the matters before them. 

S. T. WALLIS, 

J. H. GORDON, 

G. W. GOLDSBOROUGH, 

JAMES T. BRISCOE, 

BARNES COMPTON. 



Whereas, in the judgment of the General Assembly of Maryland,, 
the war now waged by the Grovernment of the United States upon 
the people of the CoiifedeKate States, is uiicniistitutional in its origin, 
purposes and conduct ; repugnant to civilization and sound pnlicy ; 
subversive of the free principles upon which the Federal Union was 
founded, and certain to result in the hopeless and bloody overthrow 
of our exiistiiig institutions ; ;ind 

W/ie)-eas, the people of Maryland, while recognizing the obligation 
of their State, as a member of the Union, to submit in good faith to 
the exercise of all the legal and constitutional powers of the General 
Government, and to join as one man in figliting its authorized battles, 
do reverence, nevertheless, the great American principle of self- 
government, and sympathize deeply with their Southerti brethren in 
their noble and manly determination to uphold and defend the same; 
and 

Whereas, not merely on their own account and to turn away from 
their own soil the calamities of civil war, but for the blessed sake of 
humanity, and to avoid the wanton sheilding of fraternal blood, in 
miserable contest which can bring nothing with it but sorrow, sham 



1 a 

e 



22 

and desolation, the people of Maryland are enlisted, witb their whole 
hearts, on the side of reconciliation and peace : now, therefore, it is 
hereby 

Resolved hy the General Assemhly of Maryland, That the State of 
Maryland owes it to h»r own self-respect and her respect for the 
Constitution, not less than to her deepest and most honorable sympa- 
thies, to register this hor solemn protest against the war which the 
Federal Government has declared upon the Confederate States of the 
South, and our sistor and neighbor Virginia, and to announce her 
resolute determination to have no part or lot, directly or indirectly, 
in its prosecution. 

Resolved, Tiiat the State of Maryland earnestly and anxiously de- 
sire* the restoration of peace between the belligerent sections of the 
country, and the President, authorities, and people of the Confeder- 
ate States, having, over and over again, officially and unofficially, de- 
clared that they seek only peace and self-defence, and to be let alone, 
and that they are willing to throw down the sword, the instant that 
the sword now drawn against tliem shall be sheathed, the Senators 
and Delegates of Maryland do beseech and implore the President of 
the United States to accept the olive branch which is thus held out to 
him ; and in the name of Cod and humanity to eease this unholy and 
most wretched and unprofitable strife, at least until the assembling of 
Congress in Washington shall have given time for the p.revalence of 
cooler and better counsels. 

ResoUed, That the State of Maryland desires the peaceful and 
immediate recognition of the independence of the Confederate States, 
and hereby gives her cordial assent thereunto, as a member of the 
Union : entertaining the profound conviction that the willing return 
of the Southern people to their former Federal relations is a thing 
beyond hope, and that the atten)pt to coerce them will only add 
slaughter and hate to impossibility. 

Resolved, That the present military occupation of Maryland, being 
for purposes, in the opinion of this Legislature, in flagrant violation 
of the Constitution, tlie G-eneral Asseu)bly of the State, in the name 
of her people, does hereby protest against the same, and against the 
oi)pressive restrictions and illegalities with which it is attended ; call- 
ing upon all good citizens, at the same time, in the most earnest and 
authoritative manner, to abstain from all violent and unlawful inter- 
ference, of every sort, with the troops in transit through our territory 
or quartered among us, and patiently and peacefully to leave to time 
and reason the ultimate and certain re-establishment and vindication 
of the right. 

Resolved, That under existing circumstances, it is inexpedient to 
call a Sovereign Convention of the State at this time, or to take any 
measure for the immediate organization or arming of the militia. 

Resolved, That when the Legislature adjourn, it adjourn to meek 
at , on the day of next. 



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